Simulation guns include so-called electric guns and are based on the invention relating to an automatic air gun disclosed in JP-A-3-221793 (JP-B-7-43238) claimed by the applicant of this application. Since there is no apprehension of running out of gas as in the case of a gas gun, the electric guns are in wide use. Some electric guns include a shooting mode selection mechanism that can select between a single shooting mode being called a semi-automatic mode in which one shooting is performed every time a trigger is pulled, and a successive shooting mode being called a full-automatic mode in which shooting is successively performed while the trigger is pulled.
Since the shooting mode selection mechanism is controlled by turning on and off a drive circuit of an electric motor, a trigger operation and the electric motor are required to be interconnected to each other in any form. Generally, the trigger is not so far from the electric motor which drives a piston cylinder mechanism. Therefore, in electric guns in the related art, in regard to the interconnection between the trigger and the electric motor, ON-OFF control of a switch has been performed by using a sector gear driven by the electric motor. The sector gear meshes with a rack provided on a piston side and causes the piston to retract. Since one shooting is performed for each rotation of the sector gear, it is convenient for performing ON-OFF control of the switch.
The sector gear is at a position close to the electric motor that is a drive source. In order to cause the sector gear and the switch to be interconnected to each other, the sector gear and the switch are required to be disposed close to each other. Requiring the sector gear and the switch to be disclosed close to each other becomes restriction, resulting in a problem of deterioration in the degree of freedom of the layout for the piston cylinder mechanism, the electric mechanism, and the like in the simulation gun. In addition to the influence on the layout, the restriction denotes that it is difficult to motorize simulation guns of a type in which the sector gear is at a position relatively far from the trigger. Therefore, in a case of modeling a long barreled-type electric gun by using a method in the related art, for example, there is no alternative but to shorten the length of the piston cylinder mechanism, resulting in an obstacle to developing a product.
Moreover, in the invention of JP-A-2006-300462, reliability of switching is achieved after energization to a motor is cut off, the sector gear is unmeshed from the rack due to inertial rotation and is caused to engage with the trigger through an operation in which a movable member of the piston cylinder mechanism returns. This method basically has the same intent as the invention of JP-A-3-221793. In this manner, it has been technically common for the sector gear and the switch to be disposed in a very restrictive manner. As a result, in spite of an electric gun modeled on a long barreled-type gun which is longitudinally lengthened, there is no alternative but to shorten the piston cylinder mechanism, resulting in a problem in that the sector gear and the switch cannot be disposed away from each other as long as the method in the related art is used.